Home topics finance finance-cash-flow Cashflow Managing Cashflow SMEs become environmentally-friendly Brad Howarth September 5, 2008 Environmentally-friendly business doesn’t have to break the bank and it’s not just the preserve of big, wealthy companies. Brad Howarth finds that, as well as cutting costs, many environmentally-friendly SMEs impress their customers by reducing consumption and waste. In the past year climate change has evolved from an academic discussion to become one of the most talked about topics in Australia. With consensus reached that the climate is both warming and changing, the main arguments today revolve around what the impacts will be and what should be done to mitigate the causes. The impacts will be many. They range from the agriculture industry, where crop and livestock production is already threatened by worsening drought conditions, through to tourism, which is predicted to bear the brunt of increasing coastal storm activity, more frequent bushfires, and decreasing snowfalls. Increased storm activity will also prove costly for the insurance industry, possibly driving up premiums. Decreased rainfall will also lead to increased energy prices as generators are forced to pay more for the water that’s essential in the process of generating electricity. Some manufacturing businesses have witnessed spot energy price increases of 100 percent and beyond. Many larger businesses, such as the ANZ Bank and News Limited, have taken it upon themselves to clean up their acts on their own, making it increasingly difficult for any business to ignore its obligation to the environment (to become carbon neutral a